SARHP252 Exam 1 Study Guide

Stages in Human Development

• Prenatal

• Infancy and toddlerhood

• Early childhood

• Middle childhood

• Adolescence

• Early adulthood

• Middle adulthood

• Late adulthood

• Death

Continuity and discontinuity

• Continuity: Gradual changes

  • Ex) As we age, our vision gradually gets better 

• Discontinuity: Distinct chunks of changes 

  • Ex) Our vision can instantly become worse due to unexpected severe eye damage  

Nature and Nurture

• Nature (biology/genetics) and nurture (environment/context) are interdependent factors that affect one another. It is not a debate, but must be seen as a combination or fusion of the two. For example, nature can affect one’s interactions with the environment, and the environment can affect one’s biology (being raised in a food desert, or an environment that exacerbates malnutrition) 

Lifespan perspective (how this perspective views development)

• Lifelong: We don’t stop developing when we hit young adulthood, we continue growing and having changes throughout our lives 

• Multidimensional: Experience changes in many different domains (physical, cognitive, and socioemotional) 

• Multidirectional: Development means gains and change 

  • Ex) We grow in height but we lose height in later adulthood

  • Ex) Our eyesight improves throughout the first few months of life to young adulthood 

• Plastic: Our brain continues to change and adapt (the capacity to be malleable) 

• Contextual: Our context influences our development 

• Multidisciplinary: Thinking about development through multiple lenses (public health, nursing, physician, OT, PT, SPL) 

Main theories of development: the characteristics / stages / constructs of each of the following theories (also know major components these theories as they relate to infant/toddlerhood development):

• Psychoanalytic

  • Freud’s psychosexual theory

  • Erikson’s psychosocial theory

• Behaviorist and social learning

  • Pavlov’s classical conditioning

  • Skinner’s operant conditioning

  • Bandura’s social learning theory

• Cognitive

  • Piaget’s cognitive-developmental theory

  • Information processing theory

• Contextual

  • Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

  • Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Systems Theory

  • Thelen’s Dynamic Systems Theory

• Ethology and Evolutionary Developmental

  • John Bowlby and Attachment Theory

  • Critical Period v. Sensitive Period

Person First v. Identity First Language

• Person-first: For people who prefer person-first language, the choice recognizes that a human is first and foremost a person

  • They have a disorder, but that disorder doesn’t define them

  • “Person with autism”

• Identity-first: For people who prefer identify-first language, the choice is about empowerment 

  • Says that autism isn’t something to be ashamed of; it can be a core part of their identity that they acknowledge front and center 

  • “Autistic person” 

• Always defer to the language the person uses to describe themselves (mirroring); acknowledging and respecting the person’s agency

Medical v. Social Models of Disability

• Medical model: Views disability as a defect within the individual

  • Pathologizing: Believes that in order to have a good quality of life, the disabled person must have the defect cured, fixed, or completed eliminated

  • Can convey messages of pity and shame

    • Passive agents to be felt sorry for or happy for when unexpected given opportunities 

  • Can also feature inspirational stories of disabled people performing ordinary, everyday tasks, or of non-disabled people performing basic acts of decency towards disabled people

• Social model: Centers disability in society, not as a defect within the individual

  • Disability = restrictions imposed by society

    • Able-bodied world designed and structured by able-bodied people

    • Trivialization of society’s impact on individuals with disabilities, when in fact these outcomes are rooted in societal structures 

  • Impairments = effects of any given condition

  • Solution lies not in fixing the person but instead in fixing society

  • Calls for an end to discrimination via education, accommodation, and universal design 

    • Universal design: Frontloads the accommodations that people may need by designing from the ground up to be universally applicable so that it’s all accessible 

What is Disability Justice (and how compares/contrasts with Disability Rights)

• Disability justice: A framework that recognizes ableism as interconnected with other forms of oppression, that fully embraces disability in all its forms, and that centers the voices of those most affected and those who have historically been left out

  • A second wave of the disability rights movement, which secured important rights for disabled people but was based around legal struggles, led predominantly by white disabled people, and centered people with mobility impairments

Principles of Disability Justice (be able to define/identify each)

• 1. Intersectionality: Multiple memberships that a person identifies with

  • Recognizing and acknowledging that interlocking systems of oppression can quantitatively impact those with certain intersectional identities 

  • Overlapping intersections may be very different for a black transgender disabled woman than a white cis-gender disabled man 

• 2. Leadership of those most affected: Centering historically marginalized and excluded voices while recognizing who has been centered for disability advocacy rights (white men) 

  • Making space for them at the front of the movement 

• 3. Anti-capitalist politic: Those deemed “atypical” are not seen as capable of productively working 

  • Peoples’ purposes in society should not be to make money

  • Those unable to work or accommodated by the working world are worth no less than people 

• 4. Cross-movement solidarity

• 5. Recognizing wholeness

• 6. Sustainability

• 7. Commitment to cross-disability solidarity

• 8. Interdependence: Highlights that it’s okay to need help 

• 9. Collective access

• 10. Collective liberation 

Reproductive Justice

• The human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities (more broadly looking at the importance of ability and support in childbirth and raising them safely) 

• “In particular, reproductive justice draws attention to the lack of physical, reproductive, and cultural safety that constrains ‘choices.’ Reproductive justice focuses on oppression–the structures of injustice and inequality–and on resistance–the development of new theories and strategies for change.” 

• Central beliefs of reproductive justice

  • A human right

    • Based on the United Nations’ internationally-accepted Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a comprehensive body of law that details the rights of individuals and the responsibilities of government to protect those rights 

  • About access, not choice

    • Mainstream movements have focused on keeping abortion legal as an individual choice

    • That is necessary, but not enough 

    • Even when abortion is legal, many WOC cannot afford it, or cannot travel hundreds of miles to the nearest clinic; there is no choice where there is no access 

  • Not just about abortion 

    • Abortion access is critical, and WOC and other marginalized women also often have difficulty accessing contraception, comprehensive sex education, STI prevention and care, domestic violence assistance, adequate wages to support families, safe homes

• Steps to achieving reproductive justice

  • Analyze power systems: Reproductive politics in the US is based on gendered, sexualized, and racialized acts of dominance that occur on a daily basis

    • RJ works to understand and eradicate these nuanced dynamics

  • Address intersecting oppressions (how their experiences intersect with other forms of oppression) 

    • Audre Lord said, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.” 

    • Marginalized women face multiple oppressions and we can only win freedom by addressing how they impact one another 

  • Center the most marginalized

    • Our society will not be free until the most vulnerable people are able to access the resources and full human rights to live self-determined lives without fear, discrimination, or retaliation 

  • Join together across issues and identities 

    • All oppressions impact our reproductive lives

    • RJ is simply human rights seen through the lens of the nuanced ways oppression impacts self-determined family creation

    • The intersectionality of RJ is both an opportunity and a call to come together as one movement with the power to win freedom for all oppressed people 

What is Ableism

• A system of assigning value to people’s bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, productivity, desirability, intelligence, excellence, and fitness

• These constructed ideas are deeply rooted in eugenics, anti-Blackness, misogyny, colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism

• Overarching prejudice/discrimination against disabled people (ableist terminology and language) 

Intersectionality- History, Definition, and Central Assumptions

• Intersectionality: The dynamic interrelations of social categories and the interwoven systems of power and privilege that accompany social category membership 

  • Complex interplay of social categories: Gender, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, immigration status, age, disabilities  

• Intersectionality theory has its roots in Black feminist sociological literature, particularly as it pertains to multiply oppressed, overlapping identities related to gender, race, and class (Collins and Crenshaw) 

  • Conceive of identites–especially oppressed identities–as being interdependent, rather than distinct aspects of the self 

Stages of Prenatal Development (Germinal, Embryonic, Fetal: Timeframe and Characteristics of Each Stage), Trimesters

• Germinal period: First two weeks after conception

  • Includes

    • Creation of the zygote

    • Continued cell division

    • Attachment of the zygote to the uterine wall 

• Embryonic period (3-8 weeks): Mass of cells is now called an embryo

  • Includes

    • The rate of cell differentiation intensifies 

    • Life-support systems for the embryo form

    • All major organs form

    • Neural tube: Basis of CNS

  • Embryo life support systems

    • Amnion: A sac that contains a clear fluid in which the developing embryo floats (protection) 

    • Placenta: A disk-shaped group of tissues in which small blood vessels from the pregnant person and the fetus intertwine but do not join

      • Nutrients and blood filtered through the placenta–traveling via the umbilical cord–and to the infant 

    • Umbilical cord: Contains two arteries and one vein and connects the baby to the placenta 

• Fetal period (9 weeks to birth): Last 7 months

  • Includes

    • Organ growth and complexity

    • Hormones play role in differentiation

    • Fetus becomes active

      • Can start kicking, rolling, etc.

    • Accumulation of body fat (crucial for warmth retention) 

  • Age of viability: The minimum number of weeks that a fetus can have developed and can potentially survive if born (about 22 weeks)  

    • Will need a lot of support (NICU) and has a higher risk of different health conditions 

    • Each week we can get past 22 weeks and closer to 38 weeks, the healthier and likely the less immediate medical support that the fetus will need 

• Trimesters: Prenatal development is also commonly divided into three equal periods of three months 

  • Both the germinal and embryonic periods (and start of the fetal period) occur during the first trimester 

  • The end of the first trimester as all the second and third trimesters are part of the fetal period 

Teratogens: Definition, Examples, and their Impact on Fetal Development

• Teratogen: An agent, such as a disease, drug, or other environmental factor, that disrupts prenatal development, increasing the risk of abnormalities, defects, or death

• Severity of damage and type of defect depend on 

  • Dose

    • Ex) A regular smoker vs. someone who has 1 cigarette their whole pregnancy 

  • Individual differences (e.g., genetic makeup)

  • Time of exposure (danger is greatest early in embryonic development)

• First 2 weeks in the Germinal period: Zygote is not as at risk of exposure

  • Majority of weeks in embryonic period: Different major core systems are developing (higher risk and severity of impact)

• Types of teratogens

  • Prescription and nonprescription drugs

    • Caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, cocaine, marijuana, heroin

• Impacts on fetal development

  • Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD): Cluster of abnormalities that appear in the offspring of someone who drinks alcohol heavily during pregnancy 

    • Effects include facial deformities, limb and heart defects, learning problems, and many other issues

  • Environmental hazards (radiation, toxic waste, other chemical pollutants) 

Prenatal Care and Racial Disparities in Care/Pregnancy Outcomes

• Varies enormously but typically includes screening for manageable conditions and treatable diseases

• Programs include educational, social, and nutritional services 

  • What to do and not to do, risks

• Significant racial and socioeconomic disparities in access to prenatal care

  • White individuals have more prenatal care starting their first trimester 

  • Black and Latina women report nearly twice as many barriers to accessing care than white women because they are more likely to experience multiple barriers to care 

    • Difficulty in finding a doctor, lack of transportation, demands of caring for young children, depression, lack of education and social support, prior poor experiences in the healthcare system, family crises 

  • Maternal and infant mortality rates 

    • Black Americans have the highest maternal and infant mortality rates than any other race in the US

      • Implicit bias by healthcare providers, lack of resources (financial, transportation, knowledge), systemic racism, no time (working to make ends meet), poor quality care, dismissal and ignoring their pain (minimizing and trivializing their feelings) 

    • Significantly higher maternal and infant mortality rates than other nations 

• Reasons for delayed prenatal care 

  • Unaffordability: Lacked money or insurance for visits (38.7%)

  • Couldn’t get appointment when desired (37.8%)

  • Didn’t know she was pregnant (37.1%)

• Inadequate prenatal care is a risk factor for low-birthweight and preterm births as well as infant mortality during the first year of life

Stages of Birth

• First stage: Uterine contractions are 10 to 15 minutes apart and last up to 1 minute 

  • Longest stage (8 to 14 hours)

  • People who have given birth before have a quicker birth in future times 

• Second stage: The baby’s head starts to move through the cervix and birth canal

  • This takes 30-90 minutes and ends when the baby completely emerges from the birthing parent’s body 

• Third stage: Afterbirth

  • When the placenta, umbilical cord, and other membranes are detached and expelled

  • Lasts about 5-15 minutes 

Childbirth Settings, Attendants, and Methods

• Setting

  • In the US, 98.5% of births take place in hospitals

  • 1.5% are at home 

• Birthing team

  • Midwives provide healthcare during pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period

    • ~9% of births in the US are attended by a midwife 

    • Support the birthing person and help that baby be born safely and helpfully (delivery)

    • Both home or hospital setting 

  • Doula: A caregiver who provides continuous physical, emotional, and educational support before, during, and after childbirth 

    • Support person for the whole family who’s there

    • Both home or hospital setting

    • They do not deliver babies

  • More positive experiences when someone has a health plan that is honored by midwives and/or doulas

    • Most insurances don’t cover a doula (issues of access) 

    • Hospitals integrating midwives and doulas into their teams reduces financial burden (and sees better outcomes) 

• Methods

  • Informed consent and plethora of knowledge (ACCESS) so that they can make the best choice and informed decision for themselves

    • Not inherently one type of delivery that is better than another, but we want people to have access to things they want 

  • Medication: Used for pain management (analgesia and anesthesia) and speeding up delivery (oxytocin/Pitocin) 

    • Ex) For someone with high blood pressure, the longer they are laboring, the higher their blood pressure is getting, so they may be recommended a medication to speed up that labor process 

    • Challenges with an epidural (standing/walking, harder to feel what’s going on) 

  • Natural (vaginal) childbirth: Uses natural/non-pharmacological approaches to pain management

    • Idea that the only way to manage pain during labor is through medication, but there are non-pharmacological approaches to reduce pain 

      • Massage, breathing patterns, hot water/baths, walking around and using different positions 

  • Cesarean delivery: Surgically removing the baby from the uterus through an abdominal incision

    • Benefits and risks of cesarean delivery continue to be debated

      • When medically necessary, they are lifesaving (e.g., if the baby is in a breech position) 

Assessing Newborn (APGAR scale, characteristics of low birthweight, preterm and small-for-date newborns)

• Apgar scale: A method for assessing the health of newborns at one and five minutes after birth

  • Infant’s heart rate: Absent vs. slow vs. rapid 

  • Respiratory effort: Absent vs. irregular/slow vs. crying/good

  • Muscle tone: Limp vs. weak/inactive vs. active/strong

  • Body color: Blue vs. pink

    • If a baby had a darker complexion, it is more difficult to tell if their body color is blue 

    • This framework assumes non-melanin skin as the standard (defaultly set based on white narratives) → racial disparities

  • Reflex irritability: No response vs. grimace vs. coughing/crying

• Preterm and low birth weight infants

  • Average infant is 8 pounds

  • Low birth weight: Infants weigh less than 5 pounds 8 ounces

    • Very low birth weight: Less than 3 pounds 8 ounces 

    • Extremely low birth weight: Less than 1 pound 10 ounces 

  • Preterm infants are born before the full term is completed–35 or fewer weeks after conception

    • In 2020, 10.1% of US infants were born preterm 

    • Diet and nutrition, exposure to teratogens can impact birth weight 

  • Small for date infants (or small for gestational age infants): Infants with birth weights below normal (<10% percentile) considering the length of pregnancy

    • May be full term or preterm 

    • Ex) If a baby was born 4 weeks early, it is unfair to compare their weight to a baby who had 4 more weeks to grow and develop 

      • Developing a more nuanced calculation for them

Body Growth (Cephalocaudal and proximodistal development)

• Cephalocaudal development: Developmental sequence in which the earliest growth always occurs at the top–the head

  • Lots of emphasis in developing the brain

• Proximodistal development: Sequence in which growth starts at the center of the body and moves toward the extremities

  • Lots of emphasis in developing the major organs 

Threats to Infant Health (Infant mortality, growth stunting/growth faltering, importance of vaccination, SIDS- definition and prevalence (generally- don’t need exact statistics))

• Infant mortality

  • Risk of infant mortality highest during first month of life (declines rapidly with age)

  • Declines over last century (disparities based on race, education level, and SES) 

• Malnutrition

  • One in four children worldwide experience growth stunting

    • Growth stunting: Reduced growth rate predominantly about height

    • Shorter than you would expect them to be often due to malnourishment

  • Growth faltering: More extreme version of growth stunting (about weight)

    • Weight below 5th percentile

• Importance of vaccination

  • American Academy of Pediatrics: 18 vaccines included in standard recommendations between birth to 18 years

  • Increasing rates of not vaccinating children (~1-3% overall, up to 20% in some communities) 

    • Philosophical, religious reasons, lack of education and access 

  • Importance of vaccine schedules (crucial that certain vaccines be administered at certain times in an infant’s/child’s early life) 

  • Discrepancies of what different medical institutions are recommending 

• Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS): A condition that occurs when infants stop breathing and die without any apparent reason

  • Different risk factors linked to increased risk of SIDS (correlational, not necessarily causational) 

    • Maternal smoking/exposure to cigarette smoke 

    • Lower socioeconomic groups

      • Access to prenatal care

    • Low birth weight

    • Sleep apnea 

    • Sleeping on soft bedding/bed sharing

    • Abnormal brain stem functioning

    • Heart arrhythmia 

  • Protective factors

    • Breastfeeding

    • Sleep in room with fan

    • “Back to sleep” → Reminder for caregivers to place the baby on their back when falling asleep (not their stomachs) 

4 lobes and general function of each

• Frontal: Involved in voluntary movement, impulse control, higher thinking (front)

• Occipital: Involved in vision (back of the head)

• Parietal: Involved in understanding spatial location (where your body is in space), attention and motor control  

• Temporal: Involved in hearing, language processing, and memory

Major components of a neuron

• Cell body: Houses the nucleus 

• Dendrite: Branches that receive signals sent from other neurons

• Axon: Tunnel that the signal travels through 

• Synapse: Space in between different neurons 

• Myelin sheath: Covers the axon, speeding up conduction and signal transmission  

Neural development: neurogenesis, synaptogenesis, myelination, synaptic pruning

• Neurogenesis: Formation of neurons (early prenatal development)

• Synaptogenesis: Increased connectivity among neurons creates new neural pathways

  • The more commonly a pathway is used, the stronger that pathway gets 

• Myelination: “Insulating” axons to increase speed of conduction

• Synaptic pruning: Connections that are used become stronger, while the unused ones are replaced or disappear–they are “pruned” 

  • Cutting out the potential pathways that aren’t being utilized in the brain

  • The environment you’re exposed to (especially as an infant) will inform which pathways you’re using a lot and get stronger vs. pathways you don’t use a lot 

Experience-expectant brain development

• The brain depends on experiencing certain basic events/stimuli at key points in time for typical development

  • Biological and environmental components come together 

  • Sensitive periods 

  • Studies of infants in severely underfunded orphanages (lack/absence of opportunities to build and practice those skills) 

    • Lack of toys, playing→reduced brain and motor skill development

  • Plasticity/resiliency of our brain may be much harder once the infant ages

Infant sleep- Importance and frequency

• Sleep restores, replenishes, and rebuilds our brains and bodies (taking in so much information every day) 

• Sleep deprivation has a negative impact on memory, attention, reasoning, and decision making  

• The typical newborn sleeps approximately 16-18 hours a day

• Cultural variations influence infant sleeping patterns 

  • Independent vs. co-sleeping 

• Different solutions for managing sleep/containment/transport

  • Quechua swaddle (Peru), Nez Perce cradleboard (Native American), Gahvora cradleboard (Tajikistan) 

Sensation v. perception

• Sensation: The product of the interaction between information and the sensory receptors–the eyes (sight), ears (hearing), tongue (taste), nostrils (smell), and skin (touch)

• Perception: The interpretation of what is sensed 

  • Can be primed to interpret something in a certain way 

Visual perception in infants

• Newborns cannot see things that are far away

• By 6 months of age, on average, vision is 20/40

• Faces are possibly the most important visual stimuli

  • We are primed to see faces 

• Color perception improves over first few months

• Depth perception: Understanding of things being further away or closer 

  • “Visual cliff”: Involves a solid table and a clear plastic that you can see through 

    • To a baby walking over it, the solid table is the end

      • Infants <5 months: Won’t pay attention to that and go onto that clear plastic part 

      • Infants around 5 months: They can sense that there’s something there and won’t go over it

Hearing in prenatal and infant stages

• The fetus can hear sounds in womb during the last two months of pregnancy

  • Infants are soothed by the pregnant person’s voice 

• Changes in hearing during infancy involve perception of

  • Loudness

    • Loud sudden sounds can wake a young infant up

    • As infants age, quieter sounds can stimulate the infant 

  • Pitch: Infants prefer higher pitched voices

  • Localization: Sensing where the sound is coming from

• Hearing loss 

  • Environmental causes, congenital CMV

  • Support systems and interventions

Reflexes- rooting, moro, palmar grasp

• Reflexes: Built-in reactions to stimuli that govern the newborn’s movements

  • Generally seen as automatic and beyond the newborn’s control

  • Rooting reflex: When the infant’s cheek or side of mouth is stroked, the head will turn towards it and the infant’s mouth will open in an attempt to suck → an attempt to get food

  • Moro reflex: When the infant hears a sudden loud noise or experiences unexpected movement, the infant will extend the arms with palms up, and then move the arms back to the body (may even cry)

  • Palmar grasp: When placing a finger or stroking the inside of the infant’s palm the hand will close around it 

  • Around the first 4-6 months (then disappears) 

Patterns of typical fine and gross motor development in this developmental stage

• Gross motor skills: Involve large-muscle activities such as walking, moving an arm/leg

  • These develop first 

  • Milestones 

    • 1 month: Prone, lift head

    • 2-4.5 months: Roll over

    • 4-8 months: Sit without support

    • 4.5-10 months: Stand without support

    • 6-10 months: Pull self to stand

    • 7-12.5 months: Walk using furniture for support

    • 10-14 months: Stand alone easily

    • 11-14: Walk alone easily 

• Fine motor skills: Involve more finely tuned movements, such as finger dexterity, moving your mouth and tongue to speak 

  • Progression of fine motor skills and things that might seem so easy (transferring an object from one hand to another) is a complex skill for an infant to learn

  • Developmentally appropriate toys and games to help a child grow their fine motor skills based on where they’re at

    • Zone of proximal development: Hard enough to challenge you but easy enough that it’s achievable

    • That the activities and environment are meeting them where they’re at and providing enough stimulation to help them grow 

Psychoanalytic theories

• Describes development as the primarily unconscious being heavily colored by emotion; interventions to get at that unconscious  

• Our behavior is the surface, visible characteristic of that manifestation of our unconscious

• Focus on ways we may symbolically work through that unconscious state 

• Heavily emphasize early experiences (infancy, young childhood) and parent-child relationships 

• Freud’s Psychosexual theory: Adult personality is determined by how you handle or resolve conflicts at each stage–between sources of pleasure and the demands of reality

  • Undergratification or overgratification can lead to not resolving that conflict appropriately; unresolved conflicts lead to problems 

  • Overemphasis on sexual instincts, but acknowledges and normalizes/depathologizes childhood sexuality (children explore their genitals) 

  • Underemphasis on culture 

  • Because they are so grounded in the idea of an unconscious, they are difficult to empirically test 

  • Five psychosexual stages of development

    • 1. Oral stage: Infant’s pleasure centers on the mouth

      • Birth to 1 ½ years

      • Ex) Sucking on a pacifier/thumb, drinking milk, beginning to make sounds 

      • Oral fixation: The child got too little or too much oral fixation 

    • 2. Anal stage: Child’s pleasure focuses on the anus 

      • 1 ½ to 3 years 

      • Ex) Potty training, more bodily control

      • Anal retentive: If a child does not have the appropriate experience, they may develop perfectionism, strict, rigid

    • 3. Phallic stage: Child’s pleasure focuses on the genitals

      • 3 to 6 years

    • 4. Latency stage: Child represses sexual interest and develops social and intellectual skills

      • 6 years to puberty

    • 5. Genital stage: A time of sexual reawakening; source of sexual pleasure becomes someone outside the family

      • Puberty onward 

• Erikson’s Psychosocial theory: Development is shaped by social influences

  • Motivation for behavior is social in nature

  • Personality and developmental change occurs throughout the life span

  • Both early and later experiences are important 

  • Stages of human development: A central conflict in each stage and coming out of it with a positive resolution will show healthy outcomes 

    • If you cannot get past that conflict or unhealthily handle it, you may have some characteristic traits that follow you along from there 

    • Trust vs. mistrust: Infancy (0-1.5 years)

      • Early infancy experiences showing that your basic needs are met, can you trust the world? → Feeding

    • Autonomy vs. shame and doubt: Toddlerhood (1.5 to 3 years) 

      • As you become more independent, do you feel you have the structure to be more autonomous?

      • Do you feel scared or never having the opportunity to try things on your own? → Toilet training, getting dressed

    • Initiative vs. guilt: Early childhood (preschool years, 3 to 6 years)

      • Is it ok for me to do things? → Exploring, creating

    • Industry vs. inferiority: Middle and late childhood (elementary school years, 6 years to puberty)

      • Am I competent? → school, sports, hobbies 

    • Identity vs. identity confusion: Adolescence (10 to 20 years)

      • Who am I? What can I be? → Social relationships 

    • Intimacy vs. isolation: Early adulthood (20s, 30s)

      • Can I love? → Romantic relationships 

    • Generativity vs. stagnation: Middle adulthood (40s, 50s)

      • Can I make my life count? → Work, parenthood (promoting the wellbeing of younger generations) 

    • Integrity vs. despair: Late adulthood (60s onward) 

      • Was my life worthwhile? → Reflecting on life 

Behaviorist and social learning theories

• Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning: Automatic associations created between environmental stimuli and physiological responses

  • Ex) The dog salivates at the sound of a bell: Through that constant pairing, the secondary stimuli (bell) created the physiological response normally expected from the food itself 

  • Without conscious thought or intention, your body makes that association 

• Skinner’s Operant Conditioning: Development consists of the pattern of behavioral changes brought about by rewards and punishments 

  • Explicitly using rewards or punishments in order to create behavioral change 

  • Positive reinforcement: Adding positive stimuli to reinforce the behavior 

  • Negative reinforcement: Taking away stimuli to reinforce the behavior 

  • Positive punishment: Adding positive stimuli to avoid/avert the behavior 

  • Negative punishment: Taking away stimuli to avoid/avert the behavior 

    • Ex) A kid misbehaves and loses the opportunity of recess 

• Bandura’s Social Learning theory: Physical and social environments influence our behavior

  • Observational learning: People learn through observing and imitating others 

    • Reinforcements play a role but are not entirely responsible for learning

    • Consequences influence behavior 

  • Reciprocal determinism: Individuals and the environment interact and influence each other 

    • Back and forth; not only are you influenced by people in your life, you influence them as well

    • Ex) A kid acts out and frustrates their teacher, and in turn, the teacher gives them less patience 

    • Individuals are active in their development (rather than passively molded by their physical and social environment) 

Cognitive theories

• Focus on thought processes and how we develop our capacity and frameworks to think 

• Piaget’s Cognitive-Developmental theory: Two processes underlie a child’s cognitive construction of the world→organization and adaptation 

  • Organization: Understanding of categorized schemas 

    • Ex) Category for horses, dogs, fish, etc.

  • Adaptation: Process of taking new information from the environment and fit it into pre-existing cognitive schemas 

    • Fitting new information into old existing buckets 

    • Ex) A child has only been exposed to cats, and they see a sheep; the kid says the sheep is a cat

  • Accommodation: Process of taking new information from the environment and altering one’s pre-existing schemas to fit in the new information 

    • Making new buckets and altering old ones to incorporate new information 

  • Four stages of cognitive development: 

    • Sensorimotor stage: When babies are just born, their cognition and perception is through sensation and motor

      • Birth to 2 years of age 

    • Preoperational stage: The child begins to represent the world with words and images; these words and images reflect increased symbolic thinking and go beyond the connection of sensory information and physical action

      • 2 to 7 years of age 

    • Concrete operational stage: The child can now reason logically about concrete events and classify objects into different sets 

      • 7 to 11 years of age 

    • Formal operational stage: The adolescent reasons in more abstract, idealistic, and logical ways 

      • 11 years of age through adulthood 

• Information Processing theory: A broader theory of how our mind works that can be applied to other life stages 

  • Analogy: The mind works in ways similar to a computer (input and output) 

  • Both have the ability to process information

  • Permits scientists to make predictions about behavior 

Contextual theories

• Take social contexts into the forefront (how your environment emphasizes learning) 

• Vygotsky’s Sociocultural theory: Emphasizes how culture and social interaction guide and are inseparable from development 

  • Zone of proximal development: We want to be getting kids in the area that is hard enough–that it is a new skill–but easy enough to do it so they can practice and grow to get that skill 

    • Supporters can provide some scaffolding to help kids get there 

    • Ex) If you teach a child letters and the difference between them, that is more optimal than asking them to read a textbook 

    • Crucial to thinking about how we can best support learning and growth in children and adults 

    • Educational perspective: What is their zone of proximal development, and how do we help them stay in that zone or provide scaffolding to get them into that zone? 

• Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Systems theory: Development is a result of the ongoing interactions among biological, cognitive, and socioemotional changes within individuals and their changing contexts 

  • Microsystem: Individuals you have immediate contact with (your interactions) 

    • Ex) Child→whoever lives in the home with them

  • Mesosystem: Relationships between people in your microsystem 

    • Ex) Your older sibling’s relationship to your parent will still impact you 

    • Ex) Your parent and teacher’s interactions will influence you

  • Exosystem: Social context that someone lives in (concrete) 

    • Ex) Government policies, school board, religious settings, access to social services, mass media consumption

      • If you are a government worker, those government policies will still be the exosystem but your coworkers can be in your microsystem 

  • Macrosystem: Broader culture and society 

    • Values, norms, and customs of the culture you are growing up in (can align or be different from those in your microsystem)

  • Chronosystem: Time plays a role in influencing an individual

    • Ex) Covid-19: Distinct event that for other people of different ages may not be significantly impacted 

  • Bidirectional and interdependent: All of these can influence each other 

    • Overlaps between chronosystem and exosystem: Historical event leading to long-lasting policies 

• Thelen’s Dynamic Systems theory: Child’s developmental domains, maturation, and environment form an integrated system that is constantly changing, resulting in developmental change and the emergence of new abilities 

  • How systems interact to impact development

  • We develop childhood milestones because there are results from common skills needed in that social context 

  • Many childhood milestones develop systematically and are the result of skill-building

    • Ex) An infant’s first steps or first word may look like isolated achievements, but they actually develop systematically and build on each other with each new skill (pulling up to stand or babbling sounds) preparing an infant to take on the next 

    • Goal-oriented behavior because it gets us an outcome we’re seeking 

      • Simple actions and abilities are continuously combined and experimented to achieve an outcome 

      • Ex) Picking up a toy involves the ability to sit upright, hold the head upright, match motor movements to vision, reach out an arm, and grasp to coordinate reaching movements to obtain a desired object 

Ethology and evolutionary developmental theory

• Zoologist Konrad Lorenz: Studied geese and the process of imprinting

  • Critical period: Discrete (black or white) times in development where something needs to happen for typical development to continue; if you miss that window, you’ve missed that window

    • For humans, a lot of these happen in prenatal development 

      • Ex) Exposure to toxins or vitamins will have a distinct course change on development 

  • When geese are first born, they look to their mother and imprint on them, following them around everywhere

    • Imprinting needs to occur at a certain, very early time in life

    • If their mother is unavailable, they may imprint on a different goose or creature 

• John Bowlby

  • Attachment to a caregiver during the first year of life has important consequences throughout the lifespan

  • Sensitive period: Time during infancy when attachment should occur to promote optimal development of social relationships (won’t have a major impact) 

    • Bit more gray, boundaries of the timing can be more fluid, impact of whether or not you get something won’t heavily influence your development 

    • Positive and secure attachment: Develop optimally in childhood and adulthood

    • Negative and insecure attachment: Development will not be optimal 

    • Ex) Early years: Easier to speak in different languages without an accent 

      • Later years, it is more difficult

Cognitive development in infancy and toddlerhood (Piaget’s six substages, object permanence, information processing theory, attention, memory and types, language development)

• Piaget’s Cognitive-Developmental Theory

  • Six substages- main behavior/abilities at each stage

    • 1: Simple reflexes (birth to 1 month)

      • Rooting, sucking, and grasping reflexes; newborns suck reflexively and innately when their lips are touched

    • 2: First habits and primary circular reactions (1 to 4 months)

      • Repeating a body sensation first experienced by chance (sucking thumb); then infants might accommodate actions by sucking their thumb differently from how they suck on a nipple 

    • 3: Secondary circular reactions (4 to 8 months)

      • An actual intention of repeating a behavior (little more understanding in the infant’s impact on the environment) 

      • An infant coos to make a person stay near; as the person starts to leave, the infant coos again 

    • 4th substage: Coordination of secondary circular reactions (8 to 12 months)

      • Infant manipulates a stick in order to bring an attractive toy within reach

    • 5th substage: Tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity (8 to 12 months)

      • A block can be made to fall, spin, hit another object, and slide across the ground

      • More purposeful, trial and error (what happens if I do this?)

      • Putting together this cause and effect 

    • 6th substage: Mental representation (18 to 24 months)

      • An infant who has never thrown a temper tantrum before sees a playmate throw a tantrum; the infant retains a memory of the event, then throws one himself the next day 

      • Start to be able to use words and mental pictures to represent actions and objects in the real world

• Object permanence: An understanding that objects and events continue to exist, even when they cannot directly be seen, heard, or touched (develops around 8 months)

• Information Processing Theory

  • Attention: The focusing of mental resources on select information

    • Infants’ attention is strongly governed by novelty and habituation 

      • Ex) If an infant sees the leaves fall for the first time, that’s really exciting; if you do this every day for a month, they’ll get less excited

    • Infants’ capacity for sustained attention develops over time

      • Infants often go from one thing to another 

  • Memory: Retention of information over time 

    • Sensory memory: Holds incoming sensory information in its original form (exists for a really short time)

    • Working memory: Holds and processes information that is being “worked” in some way (what you’re actively thinking) 

      • Interacting with your mind right now

      • Ex) If you asked how to get the Sargent building and you got directions and as you repeat those directions in your head, you are using working memory 

    • Long-term memory: Holds information to be retrieved later

      • Implicit memory: Memory without conscious recollection

        • Memories of skills and routine procedures that are performed automatically

        • Muscle memory a type of implicit memory (i.e., riding a bike) 

        • Ex) Walking, basic algebra, your capacity to drive 

      • Explicit memory: Conscious remembering of facts and experiences 

        • Ex) This weekend I went to a concert and seeing BTS

• Language Development

  • Vocabulary spurt (16-24 months)

  • Overextension: The tendency to apply a word too broadly to inappropriate objects

    • Ex) Calling any four-legged creature a cat 

  • Underextension: The tendency to apply a word too narrowly

    • Ex) If a child has a blanket that they sleep with and they call it “Blankie”; “Blankie” may apply to other blankets in the house 

  • Telegraphic speech: The use of only essential words in short phrases, without grammatical markers 

    • Ex) “Park, go” instead of “I want to go to the park”

Socioemotional development in infancy and toddlerhood (Erikson’s psychosocial theory, primary vs. secondary emotions, stranger anxiety, temperament: chess and thomas’ classifications, goodness of fit)

• Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory

  • Trust vs. mistrust (infancy, 0-1.5 years): When infants are building basic trust that their needs will be consistently met

    • Sensitive caregivers who consistently attend their infants’ needs→infants may develop trust

    • Insensitive caregivers who consistently/constantly fail to attend their infants’ needs→infants may develop mistrust 

    • Certainly not black-and-white, but for infants to have a basic belief that they will be cared for

  • Autonomy vs. shame and doubt (toddlerhood, 1.5-3 years): As a child develops more motor skills (independently walk/run), they crave more independence 

    • Sensitive caregivers can provide opportunities to allow their infant to grow their independence and confidence 

      • Ex) Allowing them to carry their plate from the kitchen to the dining table 

    • If an overprotective caregiver prevents their infant from exploring independence→infants may develop shame and doubt (hesitancy to try new things)

• Emotional Development

  • Primary emotions: Present in humans and other animals, emerging early in life

    • Happiness, sadness, interest, surprise, fear, anger, disgust 

    • Interactions with caregivers: A baby can communicate sadness through crying, a baby can communicate happiness through smiling or laughing 

      • Helps caregivers to meet their needs 

      • Babies learn to regulate their emotions 

        • Caregivers do a lot of soothing and modeling (i.e., bouncing, shhhing) that eventually, infants can self-soothe 

  • Self-conscious emotions: Require self-awareness, especially consciousness and a sense of “me”

    • Jealousy, empathy, embarrassment, guilt, pride 

    • Often elicited by parents’ caretaking methods 

  • Stranger Anxiety: Infant’s fear and wariness of strangers

    • Fear is one of the babies’ earliest emotions

    • Appears during the second half of the first year of life (6 months)

    • Really develops because of an emotional bond with their primary caregiver 

  • Temperament: Individual differences in behavioral styles, emotions, and characteristic ways of responding

    • Chess and Thomas’s classifications

      • Easy: Positive mood, able to quickly establish routines and adapt to new experiences pretty easily 

      • Difficult: Might react more negatively, might cry frequently, might have irregular routines, might have harder time to change

      • Slow to warm up: Lower activity level, somewhat negative, might display low intensity in their mood and behavior 

    • Goodness of fit: A good match/interaction between an infant’s temperament and a parent’s temperament 

      • Ex) Cycle of stress in the household: Mixing a difficult infant temperament with an anxious parent temperament 

      • Different behavioral interventions or supports depending on how parents’ temperament aligns or doesn’t align with their child’s  

Attachment (definition and how the different theorists viewed it)

• Attachment: A close emotional bond between two people

• Freud: Infants become attached to the person who provides oral satisfaction

• Erikson: Trust arises from physical comfort and sensitive care

• Harlow: Contact comfort is preferred over food

• Bowlby: Argued that infants develop an internal working model of attachment

  • Internal working model: A set of expectations of one’s worthiness of love and the availability of attachment figures during times of distress 

    • Influences the infants’ development of self-concept, and becomes a guide to later relationships 

    • Phase 1: Pre-attachment – Indiscriminate social responsiveness

      • Infants direct their attachment to human figures (no preference for who holds them)

    • Phase 2: Early attachments – Discriminating sociability (2-7 months)

      • Attachment becomes focused on one figure (primary caregiver)

      • This is where we can see stranger anxiety develop 

    • Phase 3: Attachments (7-24 months)

      • Specific attachments develop; with increased locomotion, babies actively seek contact with regular caregivers

    • Phase 4: Reciprocal relationship (24-30 months onward)

      • Children become aware of others’ feelings and goals and account for them in their own actions 

• Ainsworth: Caregivers’ sensitivity is linked to secure attachment

  • Consistently available to respond to infants’ needs

    • Infants become securely attached to mothers who are sensitive and offer high-quality responses to their signals 

  • Often let babies have an active part in determining the onset and pacing of interaction in the first year of life

  • Securely attached: Use the caregiver as a secure base from which to explore the environment

    • Might initially be distressed when their caregiver leaves but trusts that they will return; happy to see their caregiver when they return 

  • Insecure avoidant: Show insecurity by avoiding the caregiver 

  • Insecure resistant: Cling to the caregiver, then resist the caregiver by fighting against the closeness

  • Insecure disorganized: Appear disoriented, showing strong patterns of avoidance and resistance 

Difference between receptive and expressive language

• Receptive: Comprehension 

  • Language processing that allows you to understand spoken, written, and signed language 

• Expressive: Use of language (ability to output thoughts/ideas, how a person shares their wants/needs using words, signs, or gestures) or augmentative/alternative communication (i.e., use of picture boards or services) 

Explanation of Phonology, Semantics, Syntax, Morphology, & Pragmatics

• Phonology: Sounds rules governing the sound and sound combinations in a language

  • Ex) Vowels, consonants 

• Semantics: Word meaning and the relationships between words 

  • Ex) Fork, knife, and spoon are utensils 

• Syntax: Arrangement of words and phrases to form a sentence

  • Correct: The student completed the assignment  

  • Incorrect: Completed the student the assignment 

• Morphology: Internal structures of words and how these structures change the meaning of words 

  • Ex) Adding -ing to a verb changes the meaning of a verb (morphing)

• Pragmatics: Contextual or social meaning of language

  • Ex) Communicating with a mentor vs. friends→helps to understand social cues (sarcasm, metaphors, idioms) 

Types of expressive vocalization and general progression during language development

• Reflexive vocalizations: Birth-2 months

  • Looking at vocalizations that are purely reflexive in nature: Crying, burping, coughing, hiccups, gurgling 

    • Not voluntary or controlled 

• Cooing and laughter: 2-4 months

  • Including sounds of comfort

  • Velar: Sounds that we make with the back of our tongue 

• Vocal play: 4-6 months

  • Sustained vowel sounds, squeals, growls, and bilabial trills (raspberries) 

  • Controlling their vocal folds (muscles)

  • Imitation (caregivers lay down the building blocks for early critical features of language and later speech sounds) 

• Canonical babble: 6 months or a little later

  • Emergence of constant vowel syllables 

  • Paired with adult-like timing

  • May sound like a word, but attached meaning does not yet exist

  • Two kinds

    • Reduplicated: Duh-duh

    • Variegated: Buh-doo-muh-doo (around 12-13 months)–more precision 

• Jargon: 10 months+ (not all children go through it)

  • Sounds like speaking long, incomprehensible, unclear conversations 

• Growth in a short amount of time 

• Sentence formulations, use of questions 

• 12-18 months:

  • Pragmatics: Refers to objects

  • Semantics: 50-100 average

• 18-24 months:

  • Pragmatics: Requesting, answering questions, acknowledging

  • Semantics: 200-300 words by 24 months on average

  • Syntax/morphology: 2-word utterances, few grammatical markers 

• 24-30 months: 

  • Pragmatics: Symbolic play, talks about absent objects, emergence of story telling

  • Semantics: Use of what, who, basic events (What x doing? Where x going?)

  • Syntax/morphology: Early emergence of -ing, plural /s/, no, not, can’t, don’t, question forms with rising intonation only, wanna gonna 

• 30-36 months:

  • Pragmatics: Narratives are sequences of events, emergence of topic continuation 

  • Semantics: Use of “why”, basic spatial terms 

  • Syntax/morphology: Present tense auxiliaries, overgeneralized past-tense forms, 3-4 word utterances 

• 36-42 months: 

  • Pragmatics: Can you…? Would you…? Narratives include theme and temporal organization 

  • Semantics: Semantic relations between adjacent and conjoined/compound sentences

  • Syntax/morphology: Emergence of complex sentences, irregular past test articles (the, a), possessives, auxiliary verbs are used correctly

• 42-48 months:

  • Pragmatics: Reporting on past events, reasoning

  • Semantics: Use of “when” and “how”, use of conjunctions to conjoin sentences (and, because)

  • Syntax/morphology: Full prepositional clauses, Wh-clauses, simple infinites, conjoined

Myths about bilingual language development

• Learning more than one language during development

  • Does not lead to language delay

  • Does not cause a smaller vocabulary

  • Is not inherently more difficult for children

  • Is critical to preserve heritage language and culture, and in many cases, participation across generations

  • Bilingual children with language disorders should not be limited to learning one language

General trends in receptive language development

• Beginning to understand (typically understand more than they can use) 

  • Semantics (high frequency vocabulary)

  • Simple directions

  • “No”

  • “All done”

  • Wh-questions (Where’s the doggie? Who’s home? Where did mama go?) 

• 1.5 years

  • Understands many words, nouns, verbs, adjectives

  • Follows simple 1 step directions in context

  • Takes in 1 semantic element at a time

• 2 years

  • Takes in 2 semantic elements (a white vs. brown dog) 

  • Understands relational terms such as pronouns, prepositions

  • Attend/respond to language requiring a shift in attentional focus

  • Identifies objects and actions in pictures 

• 3 years

  • Beginning to take language out of the “here and now”–understands conversations about recent past events, future plans 

  • Three to four semantic elements of information in a direction

  • Understands many basic concepts (colors, shapes, size, prepositions)

  • Identifies objects based on conceptual attribute (category, function, etc.) 

• 4 years

  • Understands exclusionary concepts (all but, except)

  • Is beginning to understand temporal terms (before, after) – still uses order of mention for these

  • Begins to understand passive voice: still interprets with assumption of SVO or of probable event

  • Understands verb tense 

  • Understands stories, follows a simple plot

  • Draws inferences and conclusion 

Scope of pediatric speech-language pathology

• Speech sound production

  • Intelligibility

  • Use of sounds, rules of phonology

    • Ex) Phonology: A kid saying “cane” when they mean “crane” 

• Language

  • Receptive (comprehension)

  • Expressive (use of language)

  • Spoken language

  • Written language (reading/writing) 

• Fluency

  • Stuttering (rate, smoothness, continuity, and effort of speech production)

• Voice

  • Quality (resonance, issues related to the larynx)

• Feeding and swallowing 

  • Difficulty with eating and drinking 

Cognitive changes in early childhood (Piaget’s preoperational stage—name the substages, egocentrism, animism, centration, mountain task— Vygotsky’s theory—ZPD and scaffolding—information processing theory—attention, types of memories, executive function, theory of mind—false beliefs, the three mental states, self-concept)

• Piaget’s Preoperational Stage

  • Symbolic function substage: Ages 2-4

    • Mentally represent an object that is not present

      • Ex) Viewing an object that is not an apple, as an apple

    • Egocentrism: Inability to distinguish between one’s perspective and others’ (unable to take another’s perspective) 

      • Assumes that their perspective is the same as others (cognition, vision, hearing, etc.) 

    • Animism: Belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities and are capable of action (not weird or wrong) 

  • Intuitive thought substage: Ages 4-7

    • “Why” questions (to better understand the world around them and figure things out) 

    • Centration: A centering of attention on one characteristic, caused by a lack of conservation 

      • Ex) Taking water and pour it into a tall, skinny glass; take that water and pour it into a wider glass (both have the same)

        • A kid may centrate on “height means more”

  • Mountain task: Children younger than 7 typically choose the photograph that shows their own direct view, rather than the doll’s perspective

• Vygotsky’s Theory

  • Zone of proximal development: What a child can do independently versus with assistance 

    • On a spectrum 

      • Skills that are too easy because they’ve been mastered (no learning can take place) 

      • What children cannot do on their own without direct assistance (no learning can take place) 

      • Sweet spot: In between is the ZPD (where instruction is most beneficial, just beyond a child’s current capabilities) 

  • Scaffolding: Structurally supportive interactions that guide effective learning 

    • Modeling behaviors and maintaining attention 

      • Ex) Walking your students on how to fold a paper airplane (ensuring you watch them complete every step) 

      • Ex) Simplify problems and build on their prior knowledge without complicating it 

      • Ex) Keeping their attention on tasks 

    • Ways to adjust the instructors’ thinking to better support the child’s learning 

  • Teacher + scaffolding + social interactions =  Learning 

• Information Processing Theory

  • Attention: Children’s ability to sustain and control attention is related to positive academic outcomes 

    • Sustained attention: Focused on one thing without shifting their focus

    • Selective attention: Capacity to direct your attention to different things that may be needed for a bigger task

      • How you deploy your attention strategically to complete tasks 

      • Ex) Allocating your attention to different things that are a part of a bigger project, how you are looking for errors made 

  • Short-term memory: Expands in terms of how much stuff you can keep in your STM at once

    • Ex) How many numbers that a child could remember and repeat back 

  • Episodic memory: Memory of events and information acquired during those events (falls under explicit memory)

    • Triggered through recognition or recall 

  • Recognition memory: Ability to generate the memory with it being prompted to you (seeing something familiar and pulling it out)

    • Ex) Multiple choice exam

  • Recall memory: Ability to generate the memory without it being prompted to you

    • Ex) Fill in the blank, short answer

  • Autobiographical memory: Memories about your life and events that happened in your life

    • Supporting kids in building this

    • Children can have very accurate memories, but also are quite susceptible to suggestion 

      • Begin to say things that didn’t really happen if you persistently ask them 

  • Executive function: Higher-level cognitive functions related to the prefrontal cortex

    • Working memory = Short term memory + processor + control mechanism 

    • Flexible thinking, working memory, self-monitoring, planning and prioritizing, task initiation, organization, impulse control, emotional control 

• Theory of Mind: Child’s awareness of their own mental process and that other people have their own mental process and might think differently (ability to see something from another’s perspective) 

  • From 18 months to 3 years, there are three mental states

    • Perceptions: By age 2, they recognize another person sees what’s in front of them with their own eyes instead of seeing what the child sees

    • Emotions: Can distinguish between positive and negative emotions

    • Desires: Children recognize that if people want something, they’ll try to get it

  • From ages 3 to 5

    • False beliefs: Children come to understand the mind can represent events and objects accurately or inaccurately 

    • Someone can hold a false belief and think something differently than you 

  • Self-concept: The set of attributes, abilities, and characteristics a person describes themselves with

  • Self-esteem: The emotional evaluation of one’s own worth

    • Once kids engage more with social comparison, that self esteem can start to dip 

  • Conscience: An internal regulation of standards of right and wrong that involves integrating moral thought, feeling, and behavior 

  • Heavily influenced by caregivers and cultural context 

    • Positive modeling 

Emotional and personality development in early childhood (Erikson’s third stage, parenting styles, operant conditioning, play)

• Initiative vs. guilt (Erikson): More complicated in their ability to initiate projects, playing (not like autonomy vs. shame and doubt) 

  • Children understand they are persons in their own right

  • Identify intensely with parents

  • Perceptual, motor, cognitive and language skills to make things happen

  • Move toward a wider social world 

  • Ex) A kid taking initiative to have a whole project of building a pillow fort

• 4 styles of parenting

  • Authoritative: Expect a lot from their children and have a high degree of control over their children' s lives, and are also very accepting and responsive

    • Accepting and responsive, demanding and controlling 

    • Might have higher confidence and self-esteem, social skills 

  • Authoritarian: Demanding and low-warmth 

    • Rejecting and unresponsive, demanding and controlling

  • Uninvolved: No emotional responsiveness and lets their kid do whatever 

    • Rejecting, unresponsive, and undemanding and uncontrolling 

  • Permissive: Loving but lets their kid do whatever 

    • Accepting and responsive, undemanding and uncontrolling 

• Operant conditioning: Use of rewards and punishments to change behavior

  • Positive reinforcement: Adding a desirable stimulus to increase the behavior 

    • Ex) A student gets a sticker for every time they complete a homework assignment 

  • Negative reinforcement: Taking away an unwanted stimulus to increase the behavior 

    • Ex) You are driving a car without a seatbelt on with an annoying alarm; once you seatbelt, the annoying alarm disappears 

  • Positive punishment: Adding an unwanted stimulus to decrease the behavior 

    • Ex) A child talks out of turn in class and their punishment is extra homework 

  • Negative punishment: Taking away a desirable stimulus to decrease the behavior 

    • Ex) A child hits their sibling with the toy, and the toy gets taken away 

  • Most effective way for behavior change: Positive reinforcement when you want to increase a behavior, and negative punishment when you want to decrease a behavior 

• Play: Function and types

  • Functions 

    • Affiliation with peers

    • Tension release

    • Advances in cognitive development (trying new things and practicing skills) 

    • Exploration

    • Provision of a safe haven

  • Types of play

    • Representational play: Pretending an object is something else 

      • Ex) Pretending a rock is a phone 

      • Often a piece of sociodramatic play 

    • Solitary play: Can be self-soothing, self-reflective, and help build independence 

    • Social play 

      • Parallel: Kids doing their own thing but side by side 

      • Cooperative: More interacting with each other

        • Ex) Working on coloring the same page together  

    • Sociodramatic play: Taking on roles (i.e., Superman) and acting out stories 

    • Rough-and-tumble play: More physically active (important for gross motor skills) 

      • Ex) Wrestling, playing soccer 

    • Imaginary companions 

  • Impacts of decreasing number of hours of free play and recess (more time is needed) can influence socioemotional and cognitive development 

Physical changes in early childhood (gross and fine motor skills, brain, leading causes of death, sleep, screen use)

• Gross and fine motor skills

  • Body growth and change during early childhood

    • Slows dramatically compared to infancy 

    • Average 2-3 inches in height per year

    • About 5 pounds a year 

  • Continue to develop (physically stronger, increased bone and muscle strength, better balance and coordination)

  • Cultural context plays a large role here (the opportunities, experiences, and environments you’re exposed to influences and shapes physical development) 

  • Gross motor skills

    • Age 3: Hopping, jumping, running

    • Age 4: Low jungle gyms

    • Age 5: Races, climbing high playground structures

  • Fine motor skills

    • Age 3: Pick up tiny objects with thumb and finger

    • Age 4: More precision in puzzle piece placement

    • Age 5: Tying shoes, copying numbers/letters

• The brain

  • Continued development of brain and nervous system (synaptogenesis and synaptic pruning continue happening)

  • At 5 years of age, the brain is 90% of adult size 

  • Myelination: Increases speed and efficiency of information (increases ability to engage in fine motor and more complicated, gross motor skills) 

  • Lateralization: Brain hemispheres become more specialized 

    • Our left hemisphere tends to be focused on language and our right hemisphere tends to be focused on

• Leading causes of death in US: Unintentional injuries/accidents (drowning, car accidents, unintentional suffocation, fire)

• Sleep and activity

  • 3 to 5-year-olds need 10-13 hours per day of sleep

  • Sleep problems include insomnia, nightmares, and sleep terrors (more intense version of nightmares) 

  • Activity

    • 3 hours per day of physical activity, 60 minutes of moderate intensity within those 3 hours 

    • About 50% meet this guideline

  • Linked to cognitive development

• Screen use: Recommendation and average; negatives and positives

  • Screen time: Not just TV, but other media and communication devices

  • Average: 2-4 hours per day, recommendation is 1 hour per day

  • Negative influences: Passive learners, aggressive models, decrease time with peers and play 

  • Positive influences: Providing models of prosocial behavior (Sesame Street)